Hey

During a removal of the right rear drive shaft on my Z6, I removed the caliper and the attachment for the hand brake. When all of this was reassembled, the brake pads somehow clamped the disc and I had to remove the caliper. I carefully lifted the "housing" from which the hand brake "shaft" sticks out, and found three loose steel balls (like from a ball bearing), that supposedly where meant to reside in three pits on the actual lever/shaft mechanism.

Since the service manual has absolutely no information on this, I tried to figure out how this mechanism works. I found that the shaft moves up and down, when I twisted it, which makes sense: When the hand brake is applied, the shaft tries to move up, but is being pushed down against a spring and applies pressure on the brake pad. So I screwed the shaft down as much as possible, and put the caliper back on. This time the brake pads did not clamp the disc. Now, what is bugging me is the fact that I have a lot less movement (before the pads hit the disc) on the hand brake shaft on this side, that I have on the other side.

Maybe I didn't get the shaft thing screwed down enough? I was kinda nervous about brake fluid leakage so there was a anxious feeling about the whole procedure, I may have missed something important. I did not remove the shaft from the caliper housing, I just cleaned out some gunk, put the balls in the pits and put the housing back on. At some point (when I got no movement at all from the hand brake shaft, but the brakes did not snag), I did press the brake pedal. Then the shaft appeared to have "loosened up" a bit, but not as much as the other side.

Any thought will be greatly appreciated, thanks!

/Tomas

This is a 'cam' style hand brake , first, as you have done, is to ensure all parts are clean and free moving. a SLIGHT coat of heat proof grease is applied to moving parts only.
Static adjustment by central screw is done until pads just grip the discs then back off half a turn. then adjust cable to three clicks on the hand lever.

Thank you, I'll keep these suggestions in mind when I go bock to finish the job.

/tomas

My stock rear calipers were iffy. When I bought it used, the pins were seized on the calipers and I was able to free them from the front but the rear gave me alot of grief and the parking brake didnt work when the pins were seized. I made them work but I will be needing new rear calipers because they were so screwed up...